Ruffles Spicy Dill Pickle

Date Reviewed: 23 July 2022

Characteristics: Medium sized ruffled chips. They’re obviously exactly the same base potato chip as traditional Ruffles

Pros: Nontraditional spicy entry in the pickle chip market by a well-established player. Spice is obviously present but not overpowering

Cons: Pickle flavor is fairly sour like Lays Dill Pickle; humiliating purchasing experience

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Review:

I purchased this bag of chips at my local grocery store today, but today’s visit was not my first attempt at doing so. On the contrary, dear reader. I had tried picking them up at the same store a couple of weeks ago, but upon scanning them in the self-checkout, a cacophony of alarms rang out. “Help is on the way,” reassured an affectless and disembodied robotic woman’s voice, unaware that no employees were within earshot despite her confidence. So there I stood awaiting human intervention, alone, before my automaton judge. When help did arrive, the employee discovered these chips were not in the proverbial “system”, which had caused the machine’s perturbation. “No matter,” replied I to the clerk, concealing disappointment under a false veil of hurriedness. “I’ll do without.”

My thoughts often returned to these chips in the intervening weeks. Having never before seen them, my principal concern was that they were part of some limited production run and, after blossoming into the pickle chip scene, would silently slip away into the mists of time as a nothing but memory in the minds of those lucky few fortunate enough to experience them. If that were to be the fate of these chips, I would be counted among their number, I resolved.

Having allowed the grocery store several weeks to correct the “system”’s shortcomings, I steeled myself and returned today for another attempt to purchase these chips. To my relief, I located them chips among their non-spicy and dill-less brethren and moved to the self-checkout. Standing again before the cold unblinking eye of the grocery automaton, I hesitated, Ruffles Spicy Dill Pickle chips bag in hand. I exhaled. Then, I scanned them.

To my horror, the chips were again a mystery to the “system”. A first employee, befuddled by the machine’s intransigent insistence that it knew nothing about any Ruffles Spicy Dill Pickle chips, abandoned me to seek more qualified help. A second employee was dispatched to the chip row in search of ground truth about the product’s cost. All the while, there I stood, an object of curiosity and ridicule to my fellow shoppers, the lighted number 3 above my checkout station pulsing slowly, punctuated by the android woman’s calm reassurances that in short order, everything would be ok.

Finally, the manager reappeared, having obtained knowledge of the remittance required for the privilege of eating these crisps (NB: $5.50, which is an insane amount to pay for a regular-sized bag of chips). “You the spicy pickle guy?” he asked. Having answered in the affirmative, I suspect that my pride will not permit me to return to this store, having acquired such an epithet.

These are decent pickle chips. The basic chip is your standard Ruffles crisp; a uniform, thinly-ruffled, medium-sized chip. The pickle flavor is fairly sour, and presumably the same flavoring used in the Lays Dill Pickle chips (see review below) as they both are manufactured by Frito-Lay. The spiciness is the differentiator here, however. Its onset comes after the pickle flavor begins to wane, and is neither too mild nor too spicy, and adds .50 stars to the rating. If you see these in store, I’d pick up a bag.

Utz Ripples Fried Dill Pickle

Date Reviewed: 7 July 2022

Characteristics: Medium sized chips with thin ruffles; base potato chip structurally identical to Ruffles. Visible dill flecks.

Pros: Strong but natural pickle flavor.

Cons: Base potato chip is pedestrian, garden-variety ruffled chip

Rating: 3.75/5 stars

Review:

Any escape might help to smooth

The unattractive truth

But the suburbs have no charms to soothe

The restless dreams of youth

– Rush, Subdivisions

When I was living in Southern California about a decade ago, I quickly tired of renting an apartment west of the 5 for a king’s ransom. So, my girlfriend and I packed up and headed east out toward the Inland Empire in search of a place to live with a four-digit square footage and backyard for my dog, a move I like to think of as a “reverse-Okie”. We landed in a place off of the 15 in a brand new neighborhood, and at first, I thought it was pretty boss. That is, until I was walking my dog around our new domicile and realized that the entire subdivision had only three floor plans. Neighboring houses as mirror images. One house blue, the next ochre. Floor plan chirality. The rich tapestry of life reduced to a banal Mad Lib of shutter and front door styles. I’ve since realized this type of neighborhood design is incredibly common in newly constructed developments, but at the time I just remember feeling sad. Sad that these houses — the place where toddlers will take their first steps, kids set off for their first day of school, arguments had and differences reconciled — the scene of all of these things that make life life can be reduced to a short vector of design options, a change to any one of which will describe some other person’s house down the block. What kind of home can be represented as a 4-tuple?

Utz’s “Fried Dill Pickle” is a worthy entry from the Hanover, PA snack purveyors in the hyper-competitive pickle chip market niche. The chip has a strong, natural pickle flavor; it’s probably the pickliest pickle chip I’ve had to date. My sole issue with these chips is their form factor. This chip is exactly the Ruffles potato chip we’ve all had (Utz describes this design as “Ripples” for legal reasons, no doubt) an uncountable number of times throughout our lives. They’re medium-sized chips with thin, ruffled ridges. Why is this a problem? Compared to the amount of effort Utz obviously put into the flavoring that goes on these chips, the chip itself just seems… lazy. It’s the pickle chip version of the modern suburban hellscape — each one a facsimile of the other.

The above notwithstanding, this is a good pickle chip and if you, unlike me, do not rely on reviewing pickle-flavored potato chips as your sole source of income, you will enjoy consuming it. Amateur pickle chip enthusiasts will be unbothered by the lack of creativity involved in the design of the underlying potato chip, and bask in its luxurious pickle taste.

Trader Joe’s “Chips in a Pickle” Dill Pickle

Date Reviewed: 22 January 2022

Characteristics: Medium-thick cut, visible dill flecks, irregularly-shaped crispy chips. Color ranges from light to medium brown, depending on fried-ness. Size varies from half-dollar-sized to soda-can width.

Pros: All-around performer. Right balance of salt with dill pickle flavor. Crunchy but still light. Non-greasy.

Cons: Product of Canada.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Review:

Trader Joe’s “Chips in a Pickle” pickle chips are by far the best pickle chip this site has reviewed to date. The packaging claims these chips are made from russet potatoes “harvested on their supplier’s 4th generation potato farm”. While it’s likely that this is just marketing-speak for “some guy whose family was forced off their land by a faceless, soulless, multinational agribusiness conglomerate growing genetically-enhanced über-potatoes now works for the company”, tasting these chips almost makes you believe the story. A weathered, overall-bedecked farmer stands on the porch of his two-story farmhouse, squinted eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of rain. Crumbling fertile soil between his fingers, he studies the dirt as it rejoins the Earth from whence it came. “I’m just a simple man,” he mutters softly to no one in particular, “put on this planet to create the best damn pickle-flavored potato chips I can.”

And boy, did he. These chips have it all. First, they’re very obviously made from actual potatoes, unlike the Pringles rice/potato-slurry wafers reviewed yesterday. Brilliant brown sunburst striations color these fried tubers. They appear in a variety of shapes that you would expect from a sliced cultivar of Solanum tuberosum. You might find an occasional piece of potato skin, but it appears to be the exception rather than a feature. The chip falls squarely within the so-called “Goldilocks Zone” of potato chip thickness – it’s several times thicker than the reference Lays potato chip, but is on the thinner side of a standard kettle chip. The pickle flavor is tangy and has solid dill notes that comes from (gasp) actual dill found on every chip. Even after eating several handfuls, you won’t detect the slightest greasiness.

These are the pickle chips to beat. If you see these chips, buy them.

Pringles Dill Pickle

Date Reviewed: 21 January 2022

Characteristics: Thin, non-ruffled, dough-based

Pros: Come in a sturdy Pringles tube for on-the-go pickle-chipping. Topologically pleasing. Packaging can be used as a cantenna.

Cons: Make you sad when you eat them. Unclear where the chip ends and cardboard packaging begins. Pickle flavor tastes artificial and has a sweet aftertaste.

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Review:

Some [chips] are born mediocre, some [chips] achieve mediocrity, and some [chips] have mediocrity thrust upon them. With [Pringles Dill Pickle chips] it had been all three.

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Let’s face it – Pringles are objectively bad chips. They begin their lives as a “slurry of rice, wheat, corn, and potato flakes” that are then “pressed into shape”, ultimately forging an unholy potato-adjacent snack-chimera damned to wander the Earth for all eternity by a malevolent deity. Sure, we all enjoyed them as children because their mindless uniformity and unrivaled position as the “most-stackable” snack seemed whimsical and fun in an otherwise confusing, disorderly, and complicated world we were searching for our place in. But as we matured, we saw Pringles for what they really are — the snack version of conformity, of 1984, of office cubical farms, of the Borg. Undergirding the happy-go-lucky “once you pop, the fun don’t stop” veneer is a cold, unfeeling directive: obey.

The Dill Pickle Pringles variety applies a pickle-flavored dusting to a standard Pringle base. It is initially sour, though not objectionably so. An obviously-artificial dill flavor is present. The most unpleasant part of the Pringles Dill Pickle flavor experience, however, is a saccharine aftertaste that develops after the initial sourness fades. Why is it there? It’s unclear, since these chips are specifically marketed as dill pickle chips, rather than bread-and-butter. Overall, these chips leave a lot to be desired, from the underlying base chip to the pickle flavor palate. Only in the absence of other chip options, including non-pickle-flavored selections, would eating these chips be advised.

Is there some segment of the population that might enjoy them? Indeed, there is: mathematical topologists. Pringles are hyperbolic paraboloids, and the only chip on Earth that has an easily-calculable and regular saddle point.

Lays Dill Pickle

Date Reviewed: 5 January 2022

Characteristics: Very thin, non-ruffled, medium-sized

Pros: They’re pickle chips

Cons: Very salty, pickle flavor extremely sour, greasy

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Review:

Advertised as “tangy”, “tart”, and “crispy”, this thin, classic potato chip lives up to its billing. But the thin slice of the potato along with its greasiness and saltiness detracts from the overall pickle chip experience. This is the Honda Civic of of pickle chips — it’ll get you from point A to point B, but you won’t look cool doing it.

Lays Dill Pickle chips use the same base potato chip as the classic yellow-bag Lays. They’re medium-sized chips that are cut extremely thinly, rendering them prone to folding during the cooking process and breaking on their journey to your mouth. These chips are non-ruffled and have a fairly smooth texture with no noticeable skin present. As with classic Lays, the dill pickle variety is salty to the point of being obnoxious — you’re going to need a beverage to pair with these crisps and you might feel your face start to tingle after eating a few handfuls. Further, while the dill pickle flavor isn’t necessarily bad, it’s extremely sour. After eating a generous-but-reasonable helping, the snacker may feel their tongue start to feel raw and sensitive, diminishing the chips’ appeal.

In sum, the Lays Dill Pickle chips will get the job done if you’re in a pickle, but nothing more. Their saltiness and sourness are major cons, and the chip itself is nothing to write home about. Snack on these chips only if you can’t find anything better.